When It's Over
by that dark-haired girl
Summary: Or, Five Things Dwight, Angela, and Andy Do After the Duel. Spoilers through Episode 5x11 - "The Duel".
1. Dwight

_Five Things Dwight Does After the Duel:_

* * *

5.) Tells Mose to send the Mennonite minister away and to get the shovels from the tool shed; they're going to have to fill in the graves by midnight or else they'll fill up with rainwater, and nobody wants a watery grave taking up space out on the back lawn…_especially_ with the spring travel season coming up.

It just wouldn't look good on TripAdvisor.

* * *

4.) Drives aimlessly through the streets of Scranton. He scans through the radio stations, unable to find anything that fits as "driving music" for this particular adventure, eventually settling on the R.E.M. CD in his glove compartment. He blasts the music at full volume, ignoring the people who stare at his car at traffic lights, and he tries not to think about how her hair reminded him of wheat and gold and sunshine all wrapped into one tiny, tight-lipped package.

It's true what they say – _everybody hurts_. Sometimes.

* * *

3.) Ignores two calls from Angela, seven from Andy, and one from Jim and Pam, respectively. When Michael calls, he hesitates at first, but Dwight answers on the third ring and cheers for him when Michael tells him how David Wallace asked for _his_ advice and no one else's.

The next morning, Pam hugs him in the hallway by Michael's office and tells him that she was worried when he didn't call her back. Angela frowns at them from behind the partition, and as he hugs Pam back he can't help but think _let her be jealous_.

* * *

2.) Reads Mose the seventh _Harry Potter_ book from cover to cover after tucking him into bed. He does all the scary voices, acts out some of the battle scenes, and even after Mose falls asleep during the fifth chapter, Dwight keeps reading out loud. He forces himself to push away all thoughts of Angela when he reaches the part about Umbridge's cat patronus, but he can't help himself.

He sits on the porch and watches the stars when he finishes the book, wondering if there really is a world full of wizards and magic and a war between good and evil.

* * *

1.) Goes back to the office and digs the bobble-head out of his trash can. It hurts to look at it, and it's from _her_, but it's _his_ and seriously: who else has ever had their likeness put on a bobble-head?

When he gets back to the farm, he puts it on the shelf in his Hall of Memories – right next to the porcelain cherub she left on his nightstand – and he shuts the door behind him.

* * *


	2. Angela

_Five Things Angela Does After the Duel:_

* * *

5.) Finishes her expense reports for the quarter and ignores Oscar and Kevin for the rest of the day. Kevin keeps making idiotic comments about "whorish paperwork" and Oscar – who ended up comforting a sobbing Andy in the kitchen – keeps sending her dirty looks out of the corner of her eye, but Angela focuses all of her energy on not paying attention to them and finishes her work earlier than normal.

She marches up to Phyllis when she's done and takes back control of the Party-Planning Committee. It isn't much of a fight.

* * *

4.) Drives to her church and prays for guidance. She sits in the pew by herself, coldly staring down anyone who dares try and take a seat next to her, but Father Daniel's sermon does not give her strength. For the first time, Angela wishes that God would talk back to her when she needs His help, instead of Him making her guess.

If she ever went to confession – which she wouldn't, because it is positively _blasphemous_ to think that some _man_ could be a stand-in for _God_ and absolve her of her sins – she thinks that it might be nice to be told _exactly_ what to do to redeem herself…once in awhile, anyways.

* * *

3.) Locks her bedroom door and digs a small bag from out of her closet, pulling the yellow lace teddy she'd hidden underneath several of her extra sweaters. _No one_ has ever seen it before, and she's never even worn it…she was saving it for when she married, when she could pretend to be one of those hussies like Kelly or Karen on her honeymoon and let her husband see more than just her wrists or ankles, if just only for one time.

She puts it on, stares at her reflection in the mirror above her bureau, and for the first time since Sprinkles died, Angela bursts into tears.

* * *

2.) Calls Dwight twice, but he doesn't answer. She calls Andy once, but he also doesn't answer. She calls her sister, whose three-year-old babbles into the phone before hanging up on her. She doesn't like Mary's little boy that much…he pulled on Muffin's tail the last time he and her sister visited and nearly scarred the poor calico for life.

She considers calling her other sister – the one who she hasn't spoken to in _years_, who stole the first boy Angela had ever _liked_ from her and _started_ this whole mess – but she hangs up the phone before she can dial the number and crawls into bed with her cats.

* * *

1.) The next morning, she sends a message to D's beeper when she's about to take her usual coffee break, and waits for him down by their place in the warehouse for a full fifteen minutes.

He doesn't come.

* * *


	3. Andy

_Five Things Andy Does After the Duel:_

* * *

5.) Cancels the cake, the hotel, and as much as it pains him to do so, the wedding band. He tells everyone individually, hoping to avoid a giant scene. Hopscotch's mother sprays him with a hose to get him off her front lawn, Spare Rib throws a bottle at his head, Broccoli Rob asks too many questions, Jingle-Jangle won't stop laughing, Sandwich heads straight for the ice cream, and Doobie and Lunchbox haven't been seen since they went down to the quarry with Creed. This is possibly the worst gathering the '96 class of _Here Comes Treble_ has ever had or attempted to have, and that counts when Pubey Lewis and the News hired them all to sing at his niece's debutante ball.

Maybe when they finish reconciling, Carl 1 and Carl 2 will let them all sing at their civil union.

* * *

4.) Takes back the ring from Angela. She is characteristically stiff and proper when she wrenches it from her finger and places it in his hand, and all Andy wants to do is ask her why she strung him along for so long, but he doesn't. He puts the ring back in his wallet and goes off to cancel the caterer.

He passes the spot where he punched through the wall as he makes his way back to his desk, and for a brief minute he thinks about making the patched-up hole a heck of a lot bigger than it was last time.

* * *

3.) Goes out drinking with Kelly and Oscar. Oscar is the one who suggests it, after he'd spent the better part of an hour patting Andy's back in the kitchen he sobbed into his shirtsleeves. Kelly somehow manages to invite herself along as they are heading out the door, and they drink Long Island iced teas in a booth at Poor Richard's and talk about their various failed relationships until last call.

A few days later, he asks Oscar why he'd taken him out that night, and Oscar just raises his eyebrow and says, "_Wingman for Life, right?_"

* * *

2.) Calls Dwight twice sober and five times in-between the drinks Kelly and Oscar keep ordering for him. He doesn't even know why, because he _definitely_ doesn't want to know the sordid little details and Dwight doesn't even _like_ him all that much, but he keeps calling, hoping with each ring that he'll reach him and immediately know what he wants to say.

When stumbles into his apartment, there's a single message blinking on his answering machine and his heart leaps, thinking that it's Angela. But when he presses play, he's only greeted by the slow, distinct cadence of Dwight's voice. Dwight doesn't say he's sorry, but congratulates him on his clever use of trickery in their duel earlier that day. Andy figures its close enough.

* * *

1.) Listens to the "_Broken Hearts_" mix-CD Kelly burned for him until he's practically crying again. He sits in the driveway in his car until three in the morning, thinking that Kelly Clarkson _must_ have had her heart broken somewhere along the line for her to _sing_ like this on track seven and he is so choked up that he can't even bring himself to sing along with her.

When he gets to work the next morning, stubbly and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, there's a little post-it note in Kelly's pink, spidery handwriting stuck to his computer. He picks it up, feeling the glue stick to his fingers, and it says that when he's ready, she'll burn him her "_Heal Your Heartbreak_" mix. He pockets the note – tucking it in the outside pocket of his jacket that is emblazoned with the Cornell crest – and saves it for later.

* * *


End file.
